Going, going.....

Well, we didn't have to wait long for a significant change in the ice bridge.Here's today's pic.

An ecological disaster?

There are reports more than one million mutton bird chicks have died on Babel Island off north-east Tasmania.
See here

The Aboriginal Land Council has closed mutton bird harvesting on the island after reports the bird population has been decimated.

An aboriginal spokesperson says, "Overfishing in Tasmanian and Australian waters means that the adult birds cannot compete with the lack of food that they need to feed the chicks."

But that doesn't seem to add up. Surely there would be plenty of krill left for the shearwater if the fish were removed from the ecosystem. OTOH, perhaps too many of the other fish and squid that comprise the balance of the shearwater's diet are removed. Can't find anything about this as yet.
On the next day, however, I hear this report regarding the continuing decline in the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the west antarctic.


Can't find reference to this on the ABC website but here is the web version.
The ice shelf is showing signs of breaking up, the latest happening just a couple of days ago. There has been a reported increase in temperature over West Antarctica of 2.5deg.C.


It seems more likely that changes in the sea temperature are changing the patterns of krill availability. Even though shearwaters will travel thousands of miles for one feed for their chicks, it seems that for these parents in Tasmania, that's not far enough. It's not obvious from what I've heard so far whether all the birds have successfully hatched their eggs, and have had trouble only since starting to feed them, or whether they were affected before this.



It looks like the Wilkins Shelf will go the same way as Larsen B did a few years ago. Meanwhile we can keep an eye on Wilkins here.

Rewarding positive environmental behaviour

Writing in the Guardian on 27 November, psychologist Adam Corner maintains that

people tend to act in a way that is socially acceptable,

but that behind the social norms are pitfalls to trap the overly-righteous.

Environmental campaigns using social norms will have to be supplemented with information targeted at specific groups about the desirability of their particular behaviours. If people are doing something positive, they need to know about it,

Corner says.
So just castigating the backsliders is not enough. Positive feedback to those doing the right thing environmentally is just as important.

Recent Reading

Global Consciousness

At this post on the group blog Climate Shifts, contributor John Bruno writes:

"Our every day experience in the United States (and in many other countries) informs us that the state of our governance, where wealthy business and special interests use campaign financing, lobbying, and media control to manipulate government policy and public perceptions is not a viable system for conserving coral reefs or for sustainable living because it is predicated on the fact that; 'He who owns the political trump card wins'." ( Citation

Jameson SC (2008) Guest editorial: Reefs in trouble ­ the real root cause. Marine Pollution Bulletin 56(9):1513-1514 )

It is a great system for creating corporate profit and socializing expense at global cost, but it does not produce clean air and water in natural environments or enhance biodiversity.

Stephen is also asking: can a social, cultural community consciousness evolve into a global consciousness? There are several layers to the answer. As he argues, there may be genetically or socially based behavioral limitations that have and will preclude the development of a new form of global altruism. There are also complex competing forces that have designed a governance system incompatible with the conservation of species and ecosystems half way around the world. But I think a very deep perception gap is another key problem. Even in wealthy nations, where we have the luxury of worrying about such matters, I am struck by how few people recognize that their actions can affect other people in far away nations. Many people I talk to in the US are aware of climate change and the decline of coral reefs, but have a hard time comprehending that their choices and behaviors could actually be causing problems for people and corals in the south Pacific. Making people, especially policy makers, aware of the striking effects we are having on all the world’s oceans, including ocean chemistry and temperature, will be a critical battle in the broader campaign to address the real root cause.

Empty oceans?

Lesley spent an hour or so recently on emu parade along the beach at Cape Trib. She collected about two polystyrene boxfuls of mostly empty bottles, cans, thongs and other unidentified plastics. Notably absent in the early morning were birds along the shore - a couple of oystercatchers were the only hopefuls. There was little evidence of shoreline food -neither molluscs nor crabs. How things have changed since she was a girl!
It was interesting if unnerving to see that others have also noted this. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00qEi2UuU8k for a short video comparing the northern Pacific with the same fifty years ago. More discussion at science blogs' Shifting Baselines.
The fungus in the foreground, on the other hand, seemed quite well and happy sitting right on the beach!

Consumerism when the tide runs out

What are the real implications of peak oil in a culture where common sense
has been suppressed by consumerism?

It's an abundance of energy that makes possible the kinds of excess that many parents practice with their children. It is also energy that elevates and continuously upgrades our expectations, which then in turn become the new societal norm. Our common sense tells us these expectations as to what is normal, have little basis in reality and in many ways are harmful to our children. So why then do parents that know all the reasons that they shouldn't do something, do it anyway? Whatever force it is that encourages moms and dad to throw away the parental rulebook must be effective indeed and the only way that rulebook can be ignored, is if a definitive effort has been made to render it obsolete.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46079